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Case Study Of The Myth Of The Paperless Office

Decent Essays

Essay One

In Chapter 2 of The Myth of the Paperless Office, Sellen and Harper discuss two case studies of paperless office - Dan Tech and UK Com.
(a) Describe the lessons learned from these two case studies. (300-500 words)
It is interesting to note that while the initial case study of DanTech was focused on its role as a paperless office, the lessons learned were derived from how the implementation of change affected a company. The main lesson learned from this case study is the importance of recognising that going paperless was “a symbol of change rather than a cause of change”. This frame of mind was the crucial factor for allowing change to come about in a more natural way. Although not every change implemented was successful, DanTech …show more content…

The ability to quickly and easily reconfigure and regroup working teams was a huge payoff for the company.

While DanTech chose to redesign as a whole UKComm decided to zone in on certain areas to begin with. Here it learned a valuable lesson in that human nature and that of the workforce is hugely important. The company repeatedly came up against “resistance to change”. The company was right in discerning that technology would speed up work processes but failed to address underlying work practises that clashed with the ways of the new system. For example Accounts managers were reluctant to upload what they considered to be classified information about their clients, fearing repercussions. It didn’t matter what systems were introduces if the various work practices weren’t taken into consideration. “Organisational structures and organisational culture needed to be confronted and understood”
UKComm learned that change is not easy to bring about and that it is not as easy as painting technology as perfect and paper bad. While they found the change to be an uphill struggle they did gain a much deeper and valuable understanding of their …show more content…

This would have proved very helpful in understanding the work of the installation managers. Instead of focusing on how the process of changing to an electronic budget and planning system would reduce paper the company should have focused on the effect of the work processes already in place. Had they used CI research they would have had an understanding of how funds were shifted from one code to another “ to deal with unpredicted costs” As the new system was designed to be completely translucent in monetary terms this made life difficult for the

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